Why does are hair turn gray and we get wrinkles when we get old?

Answer 1

First off, gray hair can occur at any age, ok? I was a senior in high school when mine turned gray. As for wrinkles? Wrinkles are a result of dry skin and excessive sun, alcohol use, smoking and I suppose, even drug use and we all know that occurs at different years, too, so it all happens prior to getting old, ok? =)

Answer 2

Our bodies have DNA. DNA is like a computer program which is programmed to shut down over time. Gray hair and wrinkles is a natural occurence which warns the person sporting those features that time is almost up. It's called graves disease if a young person has wrinkles like an elderly person. Some people gray early in life, those are usually the exception. The main reason that people don't live hundreds of years is because brain cells die out without ever repairing themselves.

Answer 3

Wrinkles develop because the skin is no longer as young and resilient. Hair turns gray because the cells that make the hair deteriorate and can no longer grow color.

Age is actually a very, very simple process - when your body grows new cells, the DNA is transferred between them with instructions on how those new cells should be built. But after billions upon billions of transfers of that DNA it's no longer complete. Imagine making a Xerox copy. And then a copy of the copy, and a copy of THAT copy, so on into infinity. By the ten bajillionth copy it would be pretty unreadable wouldn't it? Your body has the same problem, because the information is incomplete, and so you start to deteriorate, thereby aging.

On a side note, natural aging doesn't start in earnest until long after the natural life span of humans in nature. If we all died at forty like we evolved doing, we wouldn't age. Aging is not a flaw of our bodies, but rather a flaw we have created by living longer than we were built to.

I think I got a little overboard, there, but I hope I helped. ^_^

Answer 4

The wrinkles are from the collagen in the skin wearing out, and not being replenished as the body's cells die off without being replaced. The hair turning gray has to do with oxidation of the hair in the follicle as it is being made.

Answer 5

cos we get old and not the same

Answer 6

our pigments dwindle ... and there is no more black pigment for the new hair to contain